egads (she/her)
Ooh, my insurance finally got done so I have a free mirage (slightly bent) at the tow yard in queanbeyan if you want it?
Spac
Yeah, sure, why not.
Are you/I going to be hit with tow and/or storage fees if we go to collect it?
egads (she/her)
Tow covered, not 100% on storage. I can go with and pay that if it comes up. Is in a storage yard on Thuralilly st.
Spac
OK. Will try to organise something for Thursday.
egads (she/her)
Radness
Spac
30th at Narooma Forest Rally. Beer now, story later.
Spac
Spac
After nearly two years of ownership, I finally did a rally in this car!
it is simultaneously an incredibly good fun and incredibly frustrating.
The event was the Narooma Forest Rally. They got 58 entries which is huge for an event like this. We were seeded car 46, which seemed like a reasonable guess to me.
The event was really... uneventful. :) No "moments", no mechanical dramas, no getting lost, nuthin'! We did later discover that the rear sump guard bolts had both broken and the sump guard was flapping around, but that was the extent of it.
It handles fantastically in the lower gears - I honestly cannot believe how much front end grip it has, even on well used tyres that are a long way past their prime.
The little 1.5 litre motor is also surprisingly willing, and can always pull the change up to 3rd gear, which is the usual Achilles heel of small rally motors.
Brakes are amazing, to the point of being too good! Seriously. You can't left foot brake much, because even a light pedal pressure overcomes the motor and you lose way too much speed... Also, any sort of panic locks the wheels instantly.
Really, I should not be surprised - they're brakes from a car that weighs ~400kg more and has literally three times as much power.
The lack of grunt is the frustrating bit. Not only because it accelerates very slowly, and rarely gets above 100kph, but also because it simply can't pull itself through corners in third gear. This means you slow down to second gear just so you can make it through safely - basically neutralising the strength of its handling.
And when you do get it into third, the slightest hill or slightest lift of the throttle pedal instantly demands you go back to 2nd gear.
All of this is compounded by the diff ratio being too tall.
Needless to say, the 1.8 and Cyborg gearbox conversion is going to happen soon!
I will reassess the brakes once the 1.8 is in, but I am thinking that stock S40 brakes might be a good downgrade (while still being a huge upgrade over the stock Mirage parts). Feels very odd to be talking about downgrading brakes, but there you go!
Philia_Bear
Lots of things to be said for being able to moderate the brakes easily
bowie
Just coming in her to say I love these threads. Bloody great seeing crap like this being chucked about the place. :D
Spac
Spac
Way overdue update - lots has happened!
First is that the car is no longer a rally car. Turns out that it was a repairable write-off when I bought it. Having sat for too long without being removed from the register, it automatically became a statutory write off.
Did this piss me off? Yes. Yes it did.
Doesn't seem to be any way around this particular bit of administrative fuckwittery, so it cannot be used as a rally car ever again. :(
I have been describing it as "I bought a cheap rally car, but ended up with an expensive khanacross car"...
After much sulking, a mate started hassling me to go to the Rallycross at Winton.
So I did.
Prep was limited to removing the rally gear and taking the wiper motor off the hatch.
And despite being the slowest car there, I had a lot of fun. I was in the slow 2WD heats against two Hyundai Excels and a ... V8 VX Commodore rally car!
Even the Excels blow it away in a straight line - and the Commodore went past them at will.
I didn't finish last in every heat, only because one of the Excels didn't have working windscreen wipers and got blinded in two heats!
Despite having a head full of ideas, it has been sitting in the shed doing nothing until last weekend when I took it to a motorkhana/ khanacross run by SKDAC at South Nowra.
I absolutely sucked on the first motorkhana run and finished about 20th out of 27(?) drivers. Just didn't have my brain in gear.
Pulled it together for the following runs and salvaged 4th overall, and 3th tin top - one of the buggies was running like pooh and one of the drivers in the other one had a drama that cost a ton of time on one run.
The khanacross went better. I got 4th again - both drivers of the healthy buggy beat me, and so did a WRX. I am OK with that! :)
So anyway, the plan is to fit a 2.4 litre MIVEC motor and box from the CH Lancer wreck that I have. Hopefully it is also possible to flip the guts of the CB Lancer LSD I have, into the CH box.
I will also strip the extra weight out of the car, but haven't decided how far I will go. The heater box and headlights will definitely go, but am still pondering whether or not to remove the dashboard entirely. Also not sure if I can be bothered to replace the glass with polycarbonate.
Spac
Old rally photo I found on the phone.
egads (she/her)
So khana means much less rules worry so just do cool stuff?
bowie
Yeah pretty much. :lol:
Also, I love those Cyborg wheels? 7 points for the win either way.
That thing with a 2.4, you be making a Muscle Hatch *cool*
Also super annoyed re it now being completely useless with rego. That is sh**t
Spac
egads;135295 wroteSo khana means much less rules worry so just do cool stuff?
Yeah.
Rallycross is the same, but with more incentive to do cool stuff.
egads (she/her)
Nice
Spac
bowie
Flipping heck! Where did you say this was again. This is Winton?
I have to get myself down there to play.
Spac
Yeah, that round was Winton. Next one is at Marulan, late May IIRC. They also have rounds at Coff Harbour and somewhere in SA.
